A Rookie's Guide To IT Operations Management Software

Imagine how boring life at the Ninety-Ninth precinct (from Brooklyn Nine Nine, duh!) would be without Gina? Especially if she wasn't around to help the team get back their internet from the cybercrimes unit? Do you remember the Internet bandwidth struggles the detectives faced when the cyber-crimes unit moved into the building? The problem was solved by Gina by blackmailing (we don’t condone it!) the cyber-crimes department head into giving the internet back to her friends. However, what if they had needed the speed and bandwidth to solve an important case?

Let's get real for a second; not everyone has the 'snooping’ powers Gina has and most importantly, the problem was not that the cybercrimes team was hogging the internet. The real issue was that the IT infrastructure was not upgraded to suit the new unit's requirements. Instead, a better solution would have been to separate the connection between the cybercrimes unit and the squad.

We are not trying to ruin the show for you; all we want to bring forth is the fact that you'd probably need a better solution to solve your business' IT issues such as internet bandwidth and speed. So, we present to you IT Operations Management Software or ITOM Software!

By the end of this article, you'd know exactly how ITOM Software works to better manage IT issues and how your business can benefit from it. So, without much ado, let's dive in!

What Is IT Operations Management Software?

Before we get into the software, let's take a look at Gartner's definition of ITOM. "IT operations management (ITOM) represents all the tools needed to manage the provisioning, capacity, performance and availability of computing, networking and application resources — as well as the overall quality, efficiency and experience of their delivery."

You'd probably have deduced that a software that allows you to carry out ITOM becomes your IT Operations Management Software. Typically, ITOM Software is a project management tool for your IT team. Using that, your IT folks can prioritize and complete tasks faster and more efficiently. These IT 'tasks' that come under ITOM can be plenty, including managing application releases, monitoring the performance of different systems and applications used by the business, cost-control activities, managing IT services of the business and overlooking the network performance and security management, AKA internet and data sharing/ storage system.

Needless to say, different organizations use ITOM Software differently depending on their IT needs. For instance, here's what Spotify's ITOM Software looks like.


They've kept it simple and use it primarily to keep track of work, expedite and prioritize operations by dividing them into three major buckets and three sub buckets within each. ITOM platform clearly serves its purpose. "We've noticed that our lead times are shorter, we get more internal tasks done and the departments we interface with are happier." Mattias Jansson, operations engineer at Spotify validates.

ITOM has come a long way and is today much more advanced than the version at Spotify. Before we go into the nitty-gritty, here's a little about how ITOM Software came into being.

Then And Now: History Of IT Operations Management

The first steps towards ITOM were taken with the concept of operations management. Close to the time of U.S. Independence, Adam Smith argued in "The Wealth of Nations" that a team where each worker is assigned a specific task to build a product together would work more efficiently than one where one person builds the entire product end-to-end. A while later, using this concept, Henry Ford came up with the idea of assembly lines which became the foundation of operations management.

For a long time, operations management was relevant only to manufacturing and related fields like supply management and distribution. It was only after the 1980s when IT rose to glory and the disciple of operations management trickled to this industry as well. Over time, ITOM gained popularity and several tools to regulate IT processes and services were developed.

Not to dwell on the past for too long, let's get back to the present and look into how these tools help manage IT operations.

How Does ITOM Software Work?

Consider IT operations management as running a puppet show. The ITOM Software becomes the ropes connecting the IT services (that are akin to puppets) and your IT team. It manages the entire infrastructure delivering IT services by mapping a system to each task that needs to be done. This way, your IT team knows exactly which rope to pull, i.e., the components required to get a job done. As a result, they're quickly able to identify different elements in a system, check the health of each of them and suggest remediation to fix any issue that arises quickly. This complete view makes managing IT infrastructure and its services easier, drastically reducing outages and downtime.

Here are some prominent features that enable the functioning of ITOM Software:
 

• Real-time visibility

  of your complete IT system to let you automatically map assets and services.

• Analysis and filtration of issues

  from different systems to prioritize the most relevant ones.

• Central control

  of all IT services for a complete overview of the entire system, including configuration data, dependencies, asset history and support activity.

• Easy integration

  between IT systems and compliance standards to detect, prioritize and resolve compliance issues at the earliest.

 

Why Do Businesses Need ITOM Software?

In the digital era, you can't really do good business without secure and efficient IT services. If your IT infrastructure has cracks, you will spend more time fighting technological fires than actually growing your business. Through ITOM Software’s incident management, you enable your IT team to maintain and monitor systems in real-time, identify critical components, prioritize and resolve tasks deftly. This, in turn, proves highly beneficial for your business operation as you can:
 

• Ensure all your digital services are performing well and are available at all times.

• Optimize the use of resources to reduce operational costs.

• Efficiently operate and maintain every technology that's being used by your business.

• Reduce IT incidents and respond in an informed manner, thereby resolving them sooner.

These benefits clearly indicate the key role of ITOM Software in any modern business. However, let's discuss its functions in depth so you don’t have any confusion about its importance!

Functions Of ITOM Software

Any ITOM Software has three key responsibilities on its shoulder:
 

• Network Infrastructure Management

  It has to establish and maintain internal and external communications channels for the business. This includes everything from setting up remote access networks to managing the internal communication systems. Not just that, network management also includes dealing with servers and firewalls, while ensuring that your business data is secure at all times.
   

• Computer Operations And Help Desk

  As a help desk management tool, ITOM Software provides an interface for incident response, event response and request fulfillment. In terms of computer operations, ITOM Software also takes care of data back-ups, communication related to incidents and network outages, managing user profiles and system access as well as executing disaster recovery plans.
   

• Server And Device Management

  Apart from the virtual applications, ITOM Software also administers IT hardware services including, maintenance of servers to provision of IT assets to different teams across desktops, mobile phones, laptops and more.

 
While these are three core functions of the software, there's no denying that the tool is continuously evolving to deliver more. Here's what we can expect in the future.

The Road Ahead: Future Of IT Operations Management Software

An inevitable advancement that's already taken root in the IT operations management sector is integrating the software with the cloud to enable cloud servers to provision IT assets effectively. Another probable evolution that most industry leaders expect in the near future is for ITOM to include Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Since IoT is slowly creeping into workplaces, keeping track of data security on unidentified devices is increasingly becoming a challenge – one that is likely to get resolved soon.

Lastly, like every other industry, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning would not leave ITOM Software unscathed. You can expect AI-powered IT solutions that automate IT service delivery and help desk management through virtual assistants like intelligent chatbots.

Here’s how the Brooklyn Nine-Nine squad feels about the future of ITOM Software!